Presented at CARL 2010. Many academic libraries are using Twitter today. But, how valuable is this tool and how often are the tweets noticed? The Sonoma State Library pulled together a group of library staff and librarians to start a new twitter initiative in the summer of 2009. The group’s goal was to try a semester long pilot of using twitter on the library homepage. The interested librarians and staff agreed to contribute tweets on their various areas of responsibility and offered tweets on new library related resources, gallery events, workshop times, services for faculty, new online tutorials, campus lectures and more. A link was always associated with the tweet and stats were collected using the free tool HootSuite, the twitter client. Once the semester pilot was over, the tweets were analyzed and divided in to four main categories: workshops, resources, events and information about the library. The tweets were also divided into library related and non-library or campus related tweets. The tweets were evaluated based on how many clicks per tweet were recorded. Statistics were pulled to see if certain categories of tweets garnered more interest. The discussion session will focus on implementing a successful twitter program in a library. The focus will be on who should be involved in the twitter process, what statistics can be obtained to evaluate the process and what twitter best practices can be created by the people involved in the twitter program.

1. Using the Library Staff and Statistics to Create a Dynamic Twitter Program @ssulib Joe J. Marquez, MLIS Sami Lange, MLIS Sonoma State University Library

2. Overview Why we started How we started Best practices Tools of choice Stats and classification Lessons learned & Problems encountered Program review/success? Sonoma State University Library

4. Potential venue to garner feedback (via DM or RT)

5. Price = free

6. En vogueSonoma State University Library

8. 10 interested staff/librarians

9. Initial “Intro to Twitter” meeting

10. rules, content, brainstormingSonoma State University Library

11. Tweeting Exercise Of course you want the best sources possible! Just your luck, we have Articles, Books, & Beyond, which leads you through the joy of finding top-notch full-text articles online, locating books & movies, and setting up your online access to all things library. No sign up needed. Tue, March 23, 10-10:30am http://library.sonoma.edu/research/workshops.html Sonoma State University Library

13. Use Hootsuite. Hootsuite allows us to add URLs and track clicks.

14. Shrink all URLs with the Hootsuite shrinking tool; this allows us to track clicks on a posted link

15. Put the URL at the end of the tweet

16. When using the word 'today' or 'tomorrow', follow up with a specific date (i.e. (10/12))

17. Add title, location, room number (when necessary), time, duration

18. We will tweet at least once/wk

19. Create a list of filler tweets in case nothing is happening in the librarySonoma State University Library

20. Tweeting Exercise Articles, Books, & Beyond 30 min workshop helps you find books, articles, media, all things library. 3/23 @10am (Rm 2016A) http://ow.ly/WSMG Sonoma State University Library

22. all other feeds at your school or institution

23. local or regional news outlets

24. cultural institutionsSonoma State University Library

26. Hours of operation

27. Sudden changes in database availability

28. Library-sponsored events (i.e. lectures, presentations)

29. Gallery openings

30. Convocation

31. Graduation

32. Finals and mid-term schedules

33. Campus emergency

34. freely available reference or research tools that may have a general audience appeal based on interest and usefulness

35. Campus events (i.e. lecture series, Sonoma Film Institute schedule)Sonoma State University Library

37. What content would you not include?Sonoma State University Library

38. Tools of Choice www.twitter.com www.hootsuite.com www.tweetake.com www. twtpoll.com Sonoma State University Library

40. Web-based

41. Scheduled tweets

42. Auto shrinking of URL

43. Stats

44. Multiple user accountsSonoma State University Library

45. Intro to Hootsuite Anatomy of the Hootsuite interface Sonoma State University Library

46. Intro to Hootsuite Anatomy of the Hootsuite content interface Counter, turns red when passed 140 chars Content area scheduler Auto shrink URLs Sonoma State University Library

47. Intro to Hootsuite Graphical output of stats for the month of February, 2010 Sonoma State University Library

48. Intro to Hootsuite Graphical output of a specific tweet Sonoma State University Library

49. Stats and Classification Tweetake is used to download all tweets. Tweets can then be classified and assigned clicks. We can then determine what interests our followers. Sonoma State University Library

50. Stats and Classification Resources (R) – resources, websites, specific items, movies or databases, new library materials, non-library related search engines or articles About (A) – changes in library hours, database availability, finals and mid-term schedules, surveys Workshops (W) – library workshops Events (E) – gallery events, campus lectures, convocation, graduation Misc. (M) – miscellaneous, announcements about non-library changes, anything random Sonoma State University Library

51. Stats and Classification Click average per tweet “section” Average clicks per tweet: 4.8 * Statistics are for the Fall 2009 semester. Sonoma State University Library

53. Challenging to get event information into 140 characters!

54. Conflicting tweet times and need to communicate so as not to over-tweet an event or resource (Hootsuite helps)

55. …and there were two

56. Everyone has an idea

57. Watch out for statistical anomaliesSonoma State University Library

58. Problems Encountered The anomaly. Sonoma State University Library

59. Problems Encountered Our readership just jumped…and we are HUGE in Canada! From Dec. 3, 2009 through Dec. 9, 2009 we recorded 1,552 clicks. Odd for a school with 8,000 students. While good for stats recording and making a case for a program, it might be good to be honest. Sonoma State University Library

60. Problems Encountered People in Canada need study rooms….BAD! Sonoma State University Library

62. Large number of hits

63. Easy free marketing for programs and books

64. Lots of re-tweets

65. Opportunity for all library departments to promote their areasSonoma State University Library

66. Final Thoughts & Questions ??? Sonoma State University Library

67. We Are Twitter account: @ssulib Joe Marquez Web Services Librarian joe.marquez@sonoma.edu Sami Lange Library Assistant III samantha.lange@sonoma.edu Sonoma State University Library